So Many Meetings
How much time do you spend in meetings every day? If you’re like most of us, it’s a big percentage of your time at work. Is all that time worth your while?
Here are some tips for the person calling the meeting — to make meeting-time more meaningful:
- Only invite the people who really need to be there. You probably don’t need a cast of thousands — especially when many are not even sure why they are there.
- Clearly state the purpose of the meeting in your invitation.
- Prepare a detailed agenda — with time-boxed subjects, expected outcomes and the responsible party for each item.
- At the start of the meeting, repeat your objectives then be specific and explicit about what you hope to accomplish.
- Either appoint a facilitator to keep you on track, or be very disciplined — stick to the subject, keep to your time table and don’t waste time.
- Take notes so you can follow up with outcomes as well as any action items that need attention.
- End the meeting on time or, better yet, a few minutes early. Shorter is definitely better than longer!
Like email, I don’t think we can avoid meetings. But if they are efficient and well-run, they can be time well spent.









February 4th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Another tip: do not call a meeting to discuss the need to have a meeting or “take something offline” with one or two of the participants. Think it through before you hit the send button!!!
As an aside: one of my greatest pleasures in my work life is hitting the “decline” button when someone sends me a meeting request. It is the ULTIMATE smack down.
February 8th, 2008 at 5:10 am
[...] simple things. Well, the ‘caller’ isn’t the only one with responsibility for a good meeting. If you’re a [...]